The Life of Sir Richard Burton by Thomas Wright

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northern shores. The Society joined with him Captain James A.Grant[FN#176] and it was settled that this new expedition shouldimmediately be made. Speke also lectured vaingloriously atBurlington House. When Burton arrived in London on May 21st it wasonly to find all the ground cut from under him. While Speke,the subordinate, had been welcomed like a king, he, Burton,the chief of the expedition, had landed unnoticed. But thebitterest pill was the news that Speke had been appointed to leadthe new expedition. And as if that was not enough, Captain Rigby,Consul at Zanzibar, gave ear to and published the complaints of someof Burton's dastardly native followers. Although Fortune cheatedBurton of having been the actual discoverer of the Source of theNile, it must never be forgotten that all the credit of havinginaugurated the expedition to Central Africa and of leading itare his. Tanganyika--in the words of a recent writer, "is in avery true sense the heart of Africa." If some day a powerful statespring up on its shores, Burton will to all time be honoured as itsindomitable Columbus. In his journal he wrote proudly, but notuntruly: "I have built me a monument stronger than brass."The territory is now German. Its future masters who shall name!but whoever they may be, no difference can be made to Burton'sglory. Kingdoms may come and kingdoms may go, but the fame ofthe truly great man speeds on for ever.

Chapter X 22nd January 1861-to August 1861 Mormons and Marriage

Bibliography:

17. The City of the Saints, 1861.

39. We rushed into each other's arms. 22nd May, 1860.

During Burton's absence Isabel Arundell tortured herself withapprehensions and fears. Now and again a message from him reachedher, but there were huge deserts of silence. Then came the news ofSpeke's return and lionization in London. She thus tells the storyof her re-union with Burton. "On May 22nd (1860), I chanced to callupon a friend. I was told she had gone out, but would be in to tea,and was asked to wait. In a few minutes another ring came to thedoor, and another visitor was also asked to wait. A voice thatthrilled me through and through came up the stairs, saying, 'I wantMiss Arundell's address.' The door opened, I turned round,and judge of my feelings when I beheld Richard! ..... We rushed intoeach other's arms. .... We went down-stairs and Richard called acab, and he put me in and told the man to drive about anywhere.He put his arm round my waist, and I put my head on hisshoulder."[FN#177] Burton had come back more like a mummy thana man, with cadaverous face, brown-yellow skin hanging in bags,his eyes protruding and his lips drawn away from this teeth--the legacy of twenty-one attacks of fever.

When the question of their marriage was brought before her parents,Mr. Arundell not only offered no impediment, but remarked: "I do notknow what it is about that man, I cannot get him out of my head.I dream of him every night," but Mrs. Arundell still refusedconsent. She reiterated her statement that whereas the Arundellswere staunch old English Catholics, Burton professed no religion atall, and declared that his conversation and his books proclaimed himan Agnostic. Nor is it surprising that she remained obdurate,seeing that the popular imagination still continued to run riot overhis supposed enormities. The midnight hallucinations of De Quinceyseemed to be repeating themselves in a whole nation. He hadcommitted crimes worthy of the Borgias. He had done a deed whichthe ibis and the crocodile trembled at. Miss Arundell boldlydefended him against her mother, though she admitted afterwardsthat, circumstances considered, Mrs. Arundell's opposition wascertainly logical.

"You and your mother have certainly one characteristic in common,"was the comment. "You are as obstinate as mules."

Burton was not without means, for on the death of his father heinherited some £16,000, but he threw his money about with therecklessness of an Aladdin, and 16 million would have gone the sameway. It was all, however, or nearly all spent in the service of thepublic. Every expedition he made, and every book he published lefthim considerably the poorer. So eager for exploration was he thatbefore the public had the opportunity to read about one expedition,he had started on another. So swiftly did he write, that before onebook had left the binders, another was on its way to the printers.Systole, diastole, never ceasing--never even pausing. Miss Arundellbeing inflexible, Burton resolved to let the matter remain ninemonths in abeyance, and, inactivity being death to him, he then shotoff like a rocket to America. One day in April (1860) Miss Arundellreceived a brief letter the tenor of which was as follows:--"I am off to Salt Lake City, and shall be back in December.Think well over our affair, and if your mind is then made up we willmarry."

Being the first intimation of his departure--for as usual there hadbeen no good-bye--the message gave her a terrible shock. Hope fled,and a prostrating illness followed. The belief that he would bekilled pressed itself upon her and returned with inexplicableinsistence. She picked up a newspaper, and the first thing that mether eye was a paragraph headed "Murder of Captain Burton."The shock was terrible, but anxious enquiry revealed the murderedman to be another Captain Burton, not her Richard.

40. Brigham Young. April 1860 to November 1860.

It was natural that, after seeing the Mecca of the Mohammedans,Burton should turn to the Mecca of the Mormons, for he was alwaysattracted by the centres of the various faiths, moreover he wishedto learn the truth about a city and a religion that had previouslybeen described only by the biassed. One writer, for instance--a lady--had vilified Mormonism because "some rude men in Salt LakeCity had walked over a bridge before her." It was scarcely the mostpropitious moment to start on such a journey. The country was tornwith intestine contentions. The United States Government werefighting the Indians, and the Mormons were busy stalking one anotherwith revolvers. Trifles of this kind, however, did not weigh withBurton. After an uneventful voyage across the Atlantic, and aconventional journey overland, he arrived at St. Joseph, popularlySt. Jo, on the Missouri. Here he clothed himself like abackwoodsman, taking care, however, to put among this luggage asilk hat and a frock coat in order to make an impression among thesaints. He left St. Jo on August 7th and at Alcali Lake saw thecurious spectacle of an Indian remove. The men were ill-looking,and used vermilion where they ought to have put soap; the squaws andpapooses comported with them; but there was one pretty girl who had"large, languishing eyes, and sleek black hair like the ears of aKing Charles Spaniel." The Indians followed Burton's waggon formiles, now and then peering into it and crying "How! How!"the normal salutation. His way then lay by darkling canons, rushingstreams and stupendous beetling cliffs fringed with pines.Arrived at his destination, he had no difficulty, thanks to the goodoffices of a fellow traveller, in mixing in the best Mormon Society.He found himself in a Garden City. Every householder had from fiveto ten acres in the suburbs, and one and a half close at home;and the people seemed happy. He looked in vain, however, for thespires of the Mormon temple which a previous writer had describedprettily as glittering in the sunlight. All he could find was"a great hole in the ground," said to be the beginning of abaptismal font, with a plain brick building, the Tabernacle, at alittle distance. After a service at the "Tabernacle" he wasintroduced to Brigham Young, a farmer-like man of 45, who evincedmuch interest in the Tanganyika journey and discussed stock,agriculture and religion; but when Burton asked to be admitted as aMormon, Young replied, with a smile, "I think you've done that sortof thing once before, Captain." So Burton was unable to addMormonism to his five or six other religions. Burton then told withtwinkling eyes a pitiful tale of how he, an unmarried man, had comeall the way to Salt Lake City, requiring a wife, but had found nowives to be had, all the ladies having been snapped up by theSaints. A little later the two men, who had taken a strolltogether, found themselves on an eminence which commanded a viewboth of the Salt Lake city and the Great Salt Lake. Brigham Youngpointed out the various spots of interest, "That's Brother Dash'shouse, that block just over there is occupied by Brother X's wives.Elder Y's wives reside in the next block and Brother Z's wives inthat beyond it. My own wives live in that many-gabled house inthe middle."

Waving his right hand towards the vastness of the great Salt Lake,Burton exclaimed, with gravity:

"Water, water, everywhere"

and then waving his left towards the city, he added, pathetically:

"But not a drop to drink."

Brigham Young, who loved a joke as dearly as he loved his seventeenwives, burst out into hearty laughter. In his book, "The City ofthe Saints," Burton assures us that polygamy was admirably suitedfor the Mormons, and he gives the religious, physiological andsocial motives for a plurality of wives then urged by that people.Economy, he tells us, was one of them. "Servants are rare andcostly; it is cheaper and more comfortable to marry them.Many converts are attracted by the prospect of becoming wives,especially from places like Clifton, near Bristol, where there are64 females to 36 males. The old maid is, as the ought to be,an unknown entity."[FN#178]

Burton himself received at least one proposal of marriage there;and the lady, being refused, spread the rumour that it was the otherway about. "Why," said Burton, "it's like

A certain Miss Baxter, Who refused a man before he'd axed her."[FN#179]

As regards the country itself nothing struck him so much as itsanalogy to Palestine. A small river runs from the WahsatchMountains, corresponding to Lebanon, and flows into Lake Utah,which represents Lake Tiberias, whence a river called the Jordanflows past Salt Lake City into the Great Salt Lake, just as thePalestine Jordan flows into the Dead Sea.

From Salt Lake City, Burton journeyed by coach and rail to SanFrancisco, whence he returned home via Panama.

41. Marriage. 22nd January 1861.

He arrived in England at Christmas 1860, and Miss Arundell, althoughher mother still frowned, now consented to the marriage. She was 30years old, she said, and could no longer be treated as a child.Ten years had elapsed since Burton, who was now 40, had first becomeacquainted with her, and few courtships could have been morechequered.

"I regret that I am bringing you no money," observed Miss Arundell.

"That is not a disadvantage as far as I am concerned," repliedBurton, "for heiresses always expect to lord it over theirlords."--"We will have no show," he continued, "for a grand marriageceremony is a barbarous and an indelicate exhibition." So thewedding, which took place at the Bavarian Catholic Church,Warwick Street, London, on 22nd January 1861, was all simplicity.As they left the church Mrs. Burton called to mind Gipsy Hagar,her couched eyes and her reiterated prophecy. The luncheon wasspread at the house of a medical friend, Dr. Bird, 49, WelbeckStreet, and in the midst of it Burton told some grisly tales of hisadventures in the Nedj and Somaliland, including an account of thefight at Berbera.

"Now, Burton," interrupted Dr. Bird, "tell me how you feel when youhave killed a man." To which Burton replied promptly and with a slylook, "Quite jolly, doctor! how do you?" After the luncheon Burtonand his wife walked down to their lodgings in Bury Street,St. James's, where Mrs. Burton's boxes had been despatched in afour-wheeler; and from Bury Street, Burton, as soon as he could pickup a pen, wrote in his fine, delicate hand as follows toMr. Arundell:

"January 23 1861,[FN#180] "Bury Street, "St. James.

"My dear Father,"I have committed a highway robbery by marrying your daughterIsabel, at Warwick Street Church, and before the Registrar--the details she is writing to her mother."It only remains to me to say that I have no ties or liaisons of anysort, that the marriage is perfectly legal and respectable. I wantno money with Isabel: I can work, and it will be my care that Timeshall bring you nothing to regret.

"I am "Yours sincerely, "Richard F. Burton."

"There is one thing," said Burton to his wife, "I cannot do,and that is, face congratulations, so, if you are agreeable, we willpretend that we have been married some months." Such matters,however, are not easy to conceal, and the news leaked out. "I amsurprised," said his cousin, Dr. Edward J. Burton, to him a few dayslater, "to find that you are married." "I am myself even moresurprised than you," was the reply. "Isabel is a strong-willedwoman. She was determined to have her way and she's got it."

With Mr. Arundell, Burton speedily became a prime favourite, and hisattitude towards his daughter was Metastasio's:

"Yes, love him, love him, He is deserving even of such infinite bliss;"

but Mrs. Arundell, poor lady, found it hard to conquer herprejudice. Only a few weeks before her death she was heard toexclaim, "Dick Burton is no relation of mine." Let us charitablyassume, however, that it was only in a moment of irritation.Isabel Burton, though of larger build than most women, was stilla dream of beauty; and her joy in finding herself united to the manshe loved gave her a new radiance. Her beauty, however, was of arather coarse grain, and even those most attached to her remarkedin her a certain lack of refinement. She was a goddess at alittle distance.

Her admiration of her husband approached worship. She says, "I usedto like to sit and look at him; and to think 'You are mine,and there is no man on earth the least like you.'" Their marriedlife was not without its jars, but a more devoted wife Burton couldnot have found; and he, though certainly in his own fashion,was sincerely and continuously attached to her. If the differencein their religious opinions sometimes led to amusing skirmishes,it was, on the other hand, never allowed to be a serious difficulty.The religious question, however, often made unpleasantness betweenMrs. Burton and Lady Stisted and her daughters--who were staunchProtestants of the Georgian and unyielding school. When the oldEnglish Catholic and the old English Protestant met there weregenerally sparks. The trouble originated partly from Mrs. Burton'simpulsiveness and want of tact. She could not help dragging in herreligion at all sorts of unseasonable times. She would introduceinto her conversation and letters remarks that a moment's reflectionwould have told her could only nauseate her Protestant friends."The Blessed Virgin," or some holy saint or other was alwaysintruding on the text. Her head was lost in her heart. She wasonce in terrible distress because she had mislaid some trifle thathad been touched by the Pope, though not in more distress, perhaps,than her husband would have been had he lost his sapphire talisman,and she was most careful to see that the lamps which she lightedbefore the images of certain saints never went out. Burton himselflooked upon all this with amused complacency and observed that shewas a figure stayed somehow from the Middle Ages. If the mediaevalMrs. Burton liked to illuminate the day with lamps or camphoratedtapers, that, he said, was her business; adding that the light ofthe sun was good enough for him. He objected at first to her goingto confession, but subsequently made no further reference to thesubject. Once, even, in a moment of weakness, he gave her fivepounds to have masses said for her dead brother; just as one mightgive a child a penny to buy a top. He believed in God, and tried todo what he thought right, fair and honourable, not for the sake ofreward, as he used to say, but simply because it was right, fair andhonourable. Occasionally he accompanied his wife to mass, and shementions that he always bowed his head at "Hallowed by Thy Name,"which "shows," as Dr. Johnson would have commented, "that he hadgood principles." Mrs. Burton generally called her husband "Dick,"but frequently, especially in letters, he is "The Bird," a namewhich he deserved, if only on account of his roving propensities.Often, however, for no reason at all, she called him "Jimmy,"and she was apt in her admiration of him and pride of possession,to Dick and Jimmy it too lavishly among casual acquaintances.Indeed, the tyranny of her heart over her head will force itselfupon our notice at every turn. It is pleasant to be able to statethat Mrs. Burton and Burton's "dear Louisa" (Mrs. Segrave) continuedto be the best of friends, and had many a hearty laugh over bygonepetty jealousies. One day, after calling on Mrs. Segrave, Burtonand his wife, who was dressed in unusual style, lunched with Dr. andMrs. E. J. Burton. "Isabel looks very smart to-day," observedMrs. E. J. Burton. "Yes," followed Burton, "she always wears herbest when we go to see my dear Louisa."

Burton took a pleasure in sitting up late. "Indeed," says one ofhis friends, "he would talk all night in preference to going to bed,and, in the Chaucerian style, he was a brilliant conversationalist,and his laugh was like the rattle of a pebble across a frozen pond.""No man of sense," Burton used to say, "rises, except in mid-summer,before the world is brushed and broomed, aired and sunned." Later,however, he changed his mind, and for the last twenty years of hislife he was a very early riser.

Among Burton's wedding gifts were two portraits--himself and hiswife--in one frame, the work of Louis Desanges, the battle painterwhose acquaintance he had made when a youth at Lucca. Burtonappears with Atlantean shoulders, strong mouth, penthouse eyebrows,and a pair of enormous pendulous moustaches, which made him lookvery like a Chinaman. Now was this an accident, for his admirationof the Chinese was always intense. He regarded them as "the futurerace of the East," just as he regarded the Slav as the future raceof Europe. Many years later he remarked of Gordon's troops, thatthey had shown the might that was slumbering in a nation of threehundred millions. China armed would be a colossus. Some day Russiawould meet China face to face--the splendid empire of Central Asiathe prize. The future might of Japan he did not foresee.

Says Lady Burton: "We had a glorious season, and took up ourposition in Society. Lord Houghton (Monckton Milnes) was very muchattached to Richard, and he settled the question of our position byasking his friend, Lord Palmerston, to give a party, and to let mebe the bride of the evening, and when I arrived Lord Palmerston gaveme his arm. ... Lady Russell presented me at Court 'on mymarriage.'"[FN#181]

Mrs. Burton's gaslight beauty made her the cynosure of all eyes.

42. At Lord Houghton's.

At Fryston, Lord Houghton's seat, the Burtons met Carlyle, Froude,Mr. A. C. Swinburne, who had just published his first book,The Queen Mother and Rosamund,[FN#182] and Vambery, the Hungarianlinguist and traveller. Born in Hungary, of poor Jewish parents,Vambery had for years a fierce struggle with poverty. Having foundhis way to Constantinople, he applied himself to the study ofOriental languages, and at the time he visited Fryston he wasplanning the most picturesque event of his life--namely, his journeyto Khiva, Bokhara and Samarcand, which in emulation of Burton heaccomplished in the disguise of a dervish.[FN#183] He told thecompany some Hungarian tales and then Burton, seated cross-legged ona cushion, recited portions of FitzGerald's adaptation of OmarKhayyam,[FN#184] the merits of which he was one of the first torecognise. Burton and Lord Houghton also met frequently in London,and they corresponded regularly for many years.[FN#185] "Richardand I," says Mrs. Burton, writing to Lord Houghton 12th August 1874,"would have remained very much in the background if you had nottaken us by the hand and pulled us into notice." A friendship alsosprang up between Burton and Mr. Swinburne, and the Burtons wereoften the guests of Mrs. Burton's uncle, Lord Gerard, who residedat Garswood, near St. Helens, Lancashire.

Chapter XI August 1861-November 1863 Fernando Po

Bibliography:

18. Wanderings in West Africa. 2 vols. 1863.19. Prairie Traveller, by R. B. Marcy. Edited by Burton 1863.20. Abeokuta and the Cameroons. 2 vols. 1863.21. A Day among the Fans. 17th February 1863.22. The Nile Basin, 1864.

43. African Gold.

As the result of his exceptional services to the public Burton hadhoped that he would obtain some substantial reward; and his wifepersistently used all the influence at her disposal to this end.Everyone admitted his immense brain power, but those mysteriousrumours due to his enquiries concerning secret Eastern habits andcustoms dogged him like some terrible demon. People refused torecognise that he had pursued his studies in the interest oflearning and science. They said, absurdly enough, "A man whostudies vice must be vicious." His insubordination at varioustimes, his ungovernable temper, and his habit of saying out bluntlyprecisely what he thought, also told against him. Then didMrs. Burton commence that great campaign which is her chief title tofame--the defence of her husband. Though, as we have already shown,a person of but superficial education; though, life through,she never got more than a smattering of any one branch of knowledge;nevertheless by dint of unremitting effort she eventually prevailedupon the public to regard Burton with her own eyes. She wroteletters to friends, to enemies, to the press. She wheedled,she bullied, she threatened, she took a hundred other courses--all with one purpose. She was very often woefully indiscreet,but nobody can withhold admiration for her. Burton was scarcely amodel husband--he was too peremptory and inattentive for that--but this self-sacrifice and hero worship naturally told on him,and he became every year more deeply grateful to her. He laughed ather foibles--he twitted her on her religion and her faulty English,but he came to value the beauty of her disposition, and the goodnessof her heart even more highly than the graces of her person.All, however, that his applications, her exertions, and theexertions of her friends could obtain from the Foreign Secretary(Lord Russell)[FN#186] was the Consulship of that white man's grave,Fernando Po, with a salary of £700 a year. In other words he wascivilly shelved to a place where all his energies would be requiredfor keeping himself alive. "They want me to die," said Burton,bitterly, "but I intend to live, just to spite the devils." It isthe old tale, England breeds great men, but grudges themopportunities for the manifestation of their greatness.

The days that remained before his departure, Burton spent at variousSociety gatherings, but the pleasures participated in by him and hiswife were neutralised by a great disaster, namely the loss of allhis Persian and Arabic manuscripts in a fire at Grindley's wherethey had been stored. He certainly took his loss philosophically;but he could never think of the event without a sigh.

Owing to the unwholesomeness of the climate of Fernando Po,Mrs. Burton was, of course, unable to accompany him. They separatedat Liverpool, 24th August 1861. An embrace, "a heart wrench;"and then a wave of the handkerchief, while "the Blackbird" Africansteam ship fussed its way out of the Mersey, having on board theBritish scape-goat sent away--"by the hand of a fit man"--one "Captain English"--into the wilderness of Fernando Po."Unhappily," commented Burton, "I am not one of those independentswho can say ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute." The stoic,however, after a fair fight, eventually vanquished the husband.Still he did not forget his wife; and in his Wanderings in WestAfrica, a record of this voyage, there is a very pretty complimentto her which, however, only the initiated would recognise.After speaking of the black-haired, black-eyed women of the Southof Europe, and giving them their due, he says, "but after a courseof such charms, one falls back with pleasure upon brown, yellow orwhat is better than all, red-auburn locks and eyes of soft, limpidblue." How the blue eyes of Mrs. Burton must have glistened whenshe read those words; and we can imagine her taking one more lookin the glass to see if her hair really was red-auburn, as,of course, it was.

Burton dedicated this work to the "True Friends" of the DarkContinent, "not to the 'Philanthropist' or to Exeter Hall."[FN#187]One of its objects was to give a trustworthy account of the negrocharacter and to point out the many mistakes that well-intentionedEnglishmen had made in dealing with it. To put it briefly, he saysthat the negro[FN#188] is an inferior race, and that neithereducation nor anything else can raise it to the level of the white.After witnessing, at the Grand Bonny River, a horrid exhibitioncalled a Juju or sacrifice house, he wrote, "There is apparently inthis people [the negroes] a physical delight in cruelty to beast aswell as to man. The sight of suffering seems to bring them anenjoyment without which the world is tame; probably the wholesalemurderers and torturers of history, from Phalaris and Nerodownwards, took an animal and sensual pleasure in the look of blood,and in the inspection of mortal agonies. I can see no otherexplanation of the phenomena which meet my eye in Africa. In almostall the towns on the Oil Rivers, you see dead or dying animals insome agonizing position."[FN#189]

Cowper had written:

"Skins may differ, but affection Dwells in white and black the same;"

"which I deny," comments Burton, "affection, like love, is the fruitof animalism refined by sentiment." He further declares that theBlack is in point of affection inferior to the brutes. "No humaneEnglishman would sell his dog to a negro."[FN#190] The phrase"God's image in ebony" lashed him to a fury.

Of his landing at Sierra Leone he gives the followinganecdote:[FN#191] "The next day was Sunday, and in the morning I hada valise carried up to the house to which I had been invited.When I offered the man sixpence, the ordinary fee, he demanded anextra sixpence, 'for breaking the Sabbath.' I gave it readily,and was pleased to find that the labours of our missionaries hadnot been in vain." At Cape Coast Castle, he recalled the sad fateof "L.E.L."[FN#192] and watched the women "panning the sand of theshore for gold." He found that, in the hill region to the north,gold digging was carried on to a considerable extent. "The pits,"he says, "varying from two to three feet in diameter, and fromtwelve to fifty feet deep, are often so near the roads that loss oflife has been the result. Shoring up being little known, the minersare not infrequently buried alive. ... This Ophir, this California,where every river is a Tmolus and a Pactolus, every hillock agold-field--does not contain a cradle, a puddling-machine, a quartzcrusher, a pound of mercury." That a land apparently so wealthyshould be entirely neglected by British capitalists caused Burtoninfinite surprise, but he felt certain that it had a wonderfulfuture. His thoughts often reverted thither, and we shall find himlater in life taking part in an expedition sent out to report uponcertain of its gold fields.[FN#193]

By September 26th the "Blackbird" lay in Clarence Cove, Fernando Po;and the first night he spent on shore, Burton, whose spirits fell,wondered whether he was to find a grave there like that other greatAfrican traveller, the Cornish Richard Lander.[FN#194]

44. Anecdotes.

Fernando Po,[FN#195] he tells us, is an island in which man finds ithard to live and very easy to die. It has two aspects.About Christmas time it is "in a state deeper than rest":

"A kind of sleepy Venus seemed Dudu."

But from May to November it is the rainy season. The rain comesdown "a sheet of solid water, and often there is lightningaccompanied by deafening peals of thunder." The capital,Sta. Isabel, nee Clarence, did not prepossess him. Pallid men--chiefly Spaniards--sat or lolled languidly in their verandahs,or crawled about the baking-hot streets. Strangers fled the placelike a pestilence. Fortunately the Spanish colony were justestablishing a Sanitarium--Sta. Cecilia--400 metres above sea level;consequently health was within reach of those who would take thetrouble to seek it; and Burton was not slow to make a sanitariumof his own even higher up. To the genuine natives or Bubes he wasdistinctly attracted. They lived in sheds without walls, and worenothing except a hat, which prevented the tree snakes from fallingon them. The impudence of the negroes, however, who would persistin treating the white man not even as an equal, but as an inferior,he found to be intolerable. Shortly after his arrival "a niggerdandy" swaggered into the consulate, slapped him on the back in afamiliar manner, and said with a loud guffaw, "Shake hands, consul.How d'ye do?" Burton looked steadily at the man for a few moments,and then calling to his canoe-men said, "Hi, Kroo-boys, just throwthis nigger out of window, will you?" The boys, delighted with thetask, seized the black gentleman by his head and feet, and out ofthe window he flew. As the scene was enacted on the ground floorthe fall was no great one, but it was remarked that henceforward theniggers of Fernando Po were less condescending to the Consul.When night fell and the fire-flies began to glitter in the orangetrees, Burton used to place on the table before him a bottle ofbrandy, a box of cigars, and a bowl containing water and ahandkerchief and then write till he was weary;[FN#196] rising nowand again to wet his forehead with the handkerchief or to gazeoutside at the palm plumes, transmuted by the sheen of the moon intolucent silver--upon a scene that would have baffled the pen even ofan Isaiah or a Virgil.

The captains of ships calling at Sta. Isabel were, it seems, in thehabit of discharging their cargoes swiftly and steaming off againwithout losing a moment. As this caused both inconvenience and lossto the merchants from its allowing insufficient time to read andanswer correspondence, they applied to Burton for remedy. After thenext ship had discharged, its captain walked into the Consulate andexclaimed off-handedly, "Now, Consul, quick with my papers; I wantto be off." Burton looked up and replied unconcernedly: "I haven'tfinished my letters." "Oh d----- your letters," cried the captain,"I can't wait for them." "Stop a bit," cried Burton, "let's referto your contract," and he unfolded the paper. "According to this,you have to stay here eighteen hours' daylight, in order to give themerchants an opportunity of attending to their correspondence.""Yes," followed the captain," but that rule has never beenenforced." "Are you going to stay?" enquired Burton. "No," repliedthe captain, with an oath. "Very good," followed Burton. "Now I amgoing straight to the governor's and I shall fire two guns. If yougo one minute before the prescribed time expires I shall send thefirst shot right across your bows, and the second slap into you.Good-day."[FN#197] The captain did not venture to test the threat;and the merchants had henceforth no further trouble under his head.

45. Fans and Gorillas.

During his Consulship, Burton visited a number of interesting spotson the adjoining African coasts, including Abeokuta[FN#198] andBenin, but no place attracted him more than the Cameroon country;and his work Two Trips to Gorilla Land[FN#199] is one of thebrightest and raciest of all his books. The Fan cannibals seem tohave specially fascinated him. "The Fan," he says "like all innerAfrican tribes, with whom fighting is our fox-hunting, live in achronic state of ten days' war. Battles are not bloody; after twoor three warriors have fallen their corpses are dragged away to bedevoured, their friends save themselves by flight, and the weakerside secures peace by paying sheep and goats." Burton, who waspresent at a solemn dance led by the king's eldest daughter,Gondebiza, noticed that the men were tall and upright, the womenshort and stout. On being addressed "Mbolane," he politely replied"An," which in cannibal-land is considered good form. He could not,however, bring himself to admire Gondebiza, though the MonsieurWorth of Fanland had done his utmost for her. Still, she must havelooked really engaging in a thin pattern of tattoo, a gauze work ofoil and camwood, a dwarf pigeon tail of fan palm for an apron,and copper bracelets and anklets. The much talked of gorilla Burtonfound to be a less formidable creature than previous travellers hadreported. "The gorilla," he, says, in his matter-of-fact way, "is apoor devil ape, not a hellish dream creature, half man, half beast."Burton not only did not die at Fernando Po, he was not even ill.Whenever langour and fever threatened he promptly winged his way tohis eyrie on the Pico de Sta. Isabel, where he made himselfcomfortable and listened with complaisance to Lord Russell andfriends three thousand miles away fuming and gnashing their teeth.

46. The Anthropological Society, 6th Jan. 1863.

After an absence of a year and a half, Burton, as the result of hiswife's solicitation at the Foreign Office, obtained four months'leave. He reached England in December 1862 and spent Christmas withher at Wardour Castle, the seat of her kinsman, Lord Arundell.His mind ran continually on the Gold Coast and its treasures."If you will make me Governor of the Gold Coast," he wrote to LordRussell, "I will send home a million a year," but in reply, Russell,with eyes unbewitched[FN#200] observed caustically that gold wasgetting too common. Burton's comment was an explosion thatterrorised everyone near him. He then amused himself by compilinga pamphlet on West African proverbs, one of which, picked up in theYorubas country, ran, oddly enough: "Anger draweth arrows from thequiver: good words draw kolas from the bag."

The principal event of this holiday was the foundation, with theassistance of Dr. James Hunt, of the Anthropological Society ofLondon (6th January 1863). The number who met was eleven.Says Burton, "Each had his own doubts and hopes and fears touchingthe vitality of the new-born. Still, we knew that our case wasgood. ... We all felt the weight of a great want. As a travellerand a writer of travels I have found it impossible to publish thosequestions of social economy and those physiological observations,always interesting to our common humanity, and at times sovaluable." The Memoirs of the Anthropological Society,[FN#201]met this difficulty. Burton was the first president, and in twoyears the Society, which met at No. 4, St. Martin's Place, had 500members. "These rooms," Burton afterwards commented, "now offer arefuge to destitute truth. There any man, monogenist, polygenist,eugenestic or dysgenestic, may state the truth as far as is in him."The history of the Society may be summed up in a few words. In 1871it united with the Enthnological Society and formed theAnthropological Institute of Great Britain. In 1873 certain membersof the old society, including Burton, founded the LondonAnthropological Society, and issued a periodical calledAnthropologia, of which Burton wrote in 1885, "My motive was tosupply travellers with an organ which would rescue theirobservations from the outer darkness of manuscript and print theircurious information on social and sexual matters out of place in thepopular book intended for the Nipptisch, and indeed better kept frompublic view. But hardly had we begun when 'Respectability,'that whited sepulchre full of all uncleanness, rose up against us.'Propriety' cried us down with her brazen, blatant voice, and theweak-kneed brethren fell away.[FN#202] Yet the organ was muchwanted and is wanted still."[FN#203] Soon after the founding of theSociety Burton, accompanied by his wife, took a trip to Madeira andthen proceeded to Teneriffe, where they parted, he going on toFernando Po and she returning to England; but during the next fewyears she made several journeys to Teneriffe, where, by arrangement,they periodically met.

Chapter XII 29th November 1863 to 15th September 1865 Gelele

Bibliography:

23. A Mission to the King of Dahome. 2 vols., 1864.24. Notes on Marcy's Prairie Traveller. Anthropological Review,1864.

47. Whydah and its Deity. 29th November 1863.

In November 1863 the welcome intelligence reached Burton that theBritish Government had appointed him commissioner and bearer of amessage to Gelele, King of Dahomey. He was to take presents fromQueen Victoria and to endeavour to induce Gelele to discontinue bothhuman sacrifices and the sale of slaves. Mrs. Burton sadly wantedto accompany him. She thought that with a magic lantern and someslides representing New Testament scenes she could convert Geleleand his court from Fetishism to Catholicism.[FN#204] But Burton,who was quite sure that he could get on better alone, objected thather lantern would probably be regarded as a work of magic, and thatconsequently both he and she would run the risk of being put todeath for witchcraft. So, very reluctantly, she abandoned the idea.Burton left Fernando Po in the "Antelope" on 29th November 1863,and, on account of the importance attached by savages to pageantry,entered Whydah, the port of Dahomey, in some state. While waitingfor the royal permit to start up country he amused himself bylooking round the town. Its lions were the Great Market and the BoaTemple. The latter was a small mud hut, with a thatched roof;and of the 'boas,' which tuned out to be pythons, he counted seven,each about five feet long. The most popular deity of Whydah,however, was the Priapic Legba, a horrid mass of red clay mouldedinto an imitation man with the abnormalities of the Roman deity."The figure," he tells us, "is squat, crouched, as it were, beforeits own attributes, with arms longer than a gorilla's. The head isof mud or wood rising conically to an almost pointed poll; a dab ofclay represents the nose; the mouth is a gash from ear to ear.This deity almost fills a temple of dwarf thatch, open at the sides....Legba is of either sex, but rarely feminine.... In this pointLegba differs from the classical Pan and Priapus, but the ideainvolved is the same. The Dahoman, like almost all semi-barbarians,considers a numerous family the highest blessing." The peculiarworship of Legba consisted of propitiating his or hercharacteristics by unctions of palm oil, and near every native doorstood a clay Legba-pot of cooked maize and palm oil, which got eatenby the turkey-buzzard or vulture. This loathsome fowl, perched uponthe topmost stick of a blasted calabash tree, struck Burton as themost appropriate emblem of rotten and hopeless Dahomey.

48. The Amazons.

Gelele's permit having arrived, the mission lost no time inproceeding northward. Burton was accompanied by Dr. Cruikshankof the "Antelope," a coloured Wesleyan minister of Whydah, namedBernisco, and a hundred servants. At every halting place thenatives capered before them and tabored a welcome, while at Kama,where Gelele was staying, they not only played, but burst out withan extemporaneous couplet in Burton's honour:

"Batunu[FN#205]he hath seen the world with its kings and caboceers, He now cometh to Dahomey, and he shall see everything here."

Burton presently caught sight of Gelele's body-guard of 1,000 women--thefamous Amazons, who were armed with muskets, and habited intunics and white calottes. With great protruding lips, and no chinto speak of, they were surely the ugliest women in the world.Of their strength, however, there was no question, and Burton saysthat all the women of Dahomey are physically superior to the men,which accounts for the employment of so many of them as soldiers.The Amazons were bound to celibacy, and they adhered to it soscrupulously that when Burton arrived, there were only 150 underconfinement for breaking their vow. Gelele who was 45 years of age,and six feet high, sat under the shade of a shed-gate, smoking apipe, with a throng of his wives squatted in a semi-circle roundhim. All were ugly to a wonder, but they atoned for theirdeplorable looks by their extreme devotion to, or rather adulationof their master. When perspiration appeared upon the royal brow,one of them at once removed it with the softest cloth, if his dresswas disarranged it was instantly adjusted, when he drank every liputtered an exclamation of blessing. Gelele, drowsy with incense,received Burton kindly, and treated him during the whole of his staywith hospitality. He also made some display of pageantry, though itwas but a tawdry show. At the capital, Abomey, "Batunu" was housedwith a salacious old "Afa-diviner"[FN#206] called Buko-no, who wasperpetually begging for aphrodisiacs.

49. "The Customs."

Upon Gelele's arrival at Abomey the presents from the Queen weredelivered; and on December 28th what was called "The Customs" began,that is the slaughtering of criminals and persons captured in war.Burton begged off some of the victims, and he declared that he wouldturn back at once if any person was killed before his eyes.He tells us, however, that in the case of the King of Dahomey,human sacrifice is not attributable to cruelty. "It is a touchinginstance of the King's filial piety, deplorably mistaken,but perfectly sincere." The world to come is called by the Dahomans"Deadland." It receives the 'nidon' or soul; but in "Deadland"there are no rewards or punishments. Kings here are kings there,the slave is a slave for ever and ever; and people occupy themselvesjust the same as on earth. As the Dahoman sovereign is obliged toenter Deadland, his pious successor takes care that the deceasedshall make this entrance in royal state, "accompanied by a ghostlycourt of leopard wives, head wives, birthday wives, Afa wives,eunuchs, singers, drummers, bards and soldiers." Consequently whena king dies some 500 persons are put to death, their cries beingdrowned by the clangour of drums and cymbals. This is called the"Grand Customs." Every year, moreover, decorum exacts that thefirstfruits of war and all criminals should be sent as recruits toswell the king's retinue. Hence the ordinary "Annual Customs,"at which some 80 perish. Burton thus describes the horrors of theapproach to the "palace"--that is to say, a great thatched shed--on the fifth day of the "Customs." "Four corpses, attired in theircriminal's shirts and night-caps, were sitting in pairs upon GoldCoast stools, supported by a double-storied scaffold, about fortyfeet high, of rough beams, two perpendiculars and as many connectinghorizontals. At a little distance on a similar erection, but madefor half the number, were two victims, one above the other.Between these substantial structures was a gallows of thin posts,some thirty feet tall, with a single victim hanging by the heelshead downwards." Hard by were two others dangling side by side.The corpses were nude and the vultures were preying upon them, andsquabbling over their hideous repast. All this was grisly enough,but there was no preventing it. Then came the Court revels.The king danced in public, and at his request, Burton andDr. Cruikshank also favoured the company. Bernisco, when calledupon, produced a concertina and played "O, let us be joyful, whenwe meet to part no more." The idea, however, of getting to anyplace where he would never be separated from Gelele, his brutishcourt, his corpses and his vultures severely tried Burton's gravity.Gelele, who was preparing for an unprovoked attack upon Abeokuta,the capital of the neighbouring state of Lagos, now made somegrandiose and rhapsodical war speeches and spoke vauntingly of thedeeds that he and his warriors meant to perform, while every now andthen the younger bloods, eager to flesh their spears, burst outwith:

"When we go to war we must slay men, And so must Abeokuta be destroyed."

The leave-taking between Gelele and "Batunu" was affecting. Burtonpresented his host with a few not very valuable presents, and Gelelein return pressed upon his guest a cheap counterpane and a slave boywho promptly absconded.

Whydah was reached again on 18th February 1864, and within a weekcame news that Gelele, puffed up with confidence and vainglory,had set out for Abeokuta, and was harrying that district. He andhis Amazons, however, being thoroughly defeated before the walls ofthe town, had to return home in what to any other power would havebeen utter disgrace. They manage things differently, however,in Dahomey, for Gelele during his retreat purchased a number ofslaves, and re-entered his capital a triumphing conqueror. Burtonconsidered Gelele, despite his butcherings and vapourings, as,on the whole, quite a phoenix for an African. Indeed, some monthsafter his mission, in conversations with Froude, the historian,he became even warm when speaking of the lenity, benevolence andenlightenment of this excellent king. Froude naturally enquiredwhy, if the king was so benevolent, he did not alter the murderous"Customs." Burton looked up with astonishment. "Alter theCustoms!" he said, "Would you have the Archbishop of Canterburyalter the Liturgy!"

To a friend who observed that the customs of Dahomey were veryshocking, Burton replied: "Not more so than those of England."

"But you admit yourself that eighty persons are sacrificed everyyear."

"True, and the number of deaths in England caused by the crinolinealone numbers 72."[FN#207]

50. Death of Speke, 15th September 1864.

In August 1864 Burton again obtained a few months' leave, and beforethe end of the month he arrived at Liverpool. It will be rememberedthat after the Burton and Speke Expedition of 1860 Speke was to goout to Africa again in company with Captain J. Grant.The expedition not only explored the western and northern shores ofthe Victoria Nyanza, but followed for some distance the riverproceeding northwards from it, which they held, and as we now know,correctly, to be the main stream of the Nile. Burton, however,was still of the opinion that the honour of being the head waters ofthat river belonged to Tanganyika and its affluents. The subjectexcited considerable public interest and it was arranged that at theapproaching Bath meeting of the British Association, Speke andBurton should hold a public disputation upon the great question.Speke's attitude towards Burton in respect to their variousdiscoveries had all along been incapable of defence, while Burtonthroughout had exhibited noble magnanimity. For example, he hadwritten on 27th June 1863 from the Bonny River to Staff-CommanderC. George, "Please let me hear all details about Captain Speke'sdiscovery. He has performed a magnificent feat and now rises atonce to the first rank amongst the explorers of the day."[FN#208]Though estranged, the two travellers still occasionallycommunicated, addressing each other, however, not as "Dear Dick"and "Dear Jack" as aforetime--using, indeed, not "Dear" at all,but the icy "Sir." Seeing that on public occasions Speke stillcontinued to talk vaingloriously and to do all in his power tobelittle the work of his old chief, Burton was naturally incensed,and the disputation promised to be a stormy one. The great dayarrived, and no melodramatic author could have contrived a morestartling, a more shocking denouement. Burton, notes in hand,stood on the platform, facing the great audience, his brain heavywith arguments and bursting with sesquipedalian and sledge-hammerwords to pulverize his exasperating opponent. Mrs. Burton, who haddressed with unusual care, occupied a seat on the platform."From the time I went in to the time I came out," says one who waspresent, "I could do nothing but admire her. I was dazed by herbeauty." The Council and other speakers filed in. The audiencewaited expectant. To Burton's surprise Speke was not there.Silence having been obtained, the President advanced and made thethrilling announcement that Speke was dead. He had accidentallyshot himself that very morning when out rabbiting.

Burton sank into a chair, and the workings of his face revealed theterrible emotion he was controlling and the shock he had received.When he got home he wept like a child. At this point the grotesquetrenches on the tragic. On recovering his calmness, Burtonexpressed his opinion, and afterwards circulated it, that Speke hadcommitted suicide in order to avoid "the exposure of hismisstatements in regard to the Nile sources." In other words,that Speke had destroyed himself lest arguments, subsequently provedto be fundamentally correct, should be refuted. But it waseminently characteristic of Burton to make statements which restedupon insufficient evidence, and we shall notice it over and overagain in his career. That was one of the glorious man's mostnoticeable failings. It would here, perhaps, be well to make abrief reference to the expeditions that settled once and for everthe questions about Tanganyika and the Nile. In March 1870,Henry M. Stanley set out from Bagamoro in search of Livingstone,whom he found at Ujiji. They spent the early months of 1872together exploring the north end of Tanganyika, and provedconclusively that the lake had no connection with the Nile basin.In March 1873, Lieutenant Verney Lovett Cameron, who was appointedto the command of an expedition to relieve Livingstone, arrived atUnyanyembe, where he met Livingstone's followers bearing theirmaster's remains to the coast. Cameron then proceeded to Ujiji,explored Tanganyika and satisfied himself that this lake wasconnected with the Congo system. He then continued his way acrossthe continent and came out at Banguelo, after a journey which hadoccupied two years and eight months, Stanley, who, in 1874, made hisfamous journey from Bagamoro via Victoria Nyanza to Tanganyika andthen followed the Congo from Nyangwe, on the Lualaba, to the sea,verified Cameron's conjecture.

At the end of the year 1864 the Burtons made the acquaintance of theAfrican traveller Winwood Reade; and we next hear of a visit toIreland, which included a day at Tuam, where "the name of Burton wasbig," on account of the Rector and the Bishop,[FN#209] Burton'sgrandfather and uncle.

25. Speech before the Anthropological Society. 4th April 1865.26. Wit and Wisdom from West Africa. 1865.27. Pictorial Pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina.28. Psychic Facts, by Francis Baker (Burton). 1865.29. Notes ... connected with the Dahoman. 1865.30. On an Hermaphrodite. 1866.31. Exploration of the Highland of the Brazil. 2 vols. 1869.

51. To Santos.

Owing mainly to Mrs. Burton's solicitation, Burton was nowtransferred from Fernando Po to Santos, in Brazil, so it was nolonger necessary for him and his wife to live apart. He wrotealtogether upon his West African adventures, the enormous number of9 volumes! namely: Wanderings in West Africa (2 vols.), Abeokuta andthe Cameroons (2 vols.), A Mission to the King of Dahome (2 vols.),Wit and Wisdom from West Africa (1 vol.), Two Trips to Gorilla Landand the Cataracts of the Congo (2 vols.). Remorselessly condensed,these nine might, with artistry, have made a book worthy to live.But Burton's prolixity is his reader's despair. He was devoid ofthe faintest idea of proportion. Consequently at the present dayhis books are regarded as mere quarries. He dedicated his Abeokuta"To my best friend," my wife, with a Latin verse which has beenrendered:

"Oh, I could live with thee in the wild wood Where human foot hath never worn a way; With thee, my city, and my solitude, Light of my night, sweet rest from cares by day."

In her own copy Mrs. Burton wrote close to the lines, "Thank you,sweet love!"[FN#210]

Burton and his wife now set out for Lisbon, where they saw a bull-fight, because Burton said people "ought to see everything once,"though this did not prevent them from going to several other bull-fights. Mrs. Burton was not at all afraid of the bulls, but whensome cockroaches invaded her apartment she got on a chair andscreamed, though even then they did not go away. More than that,numbers of other cockroaches came to see what was the matter;and they never left off coming. After "a delightful two months"at Lisbon, Burton set out for Brazil, while his wife returned toEngland "to pay and pack." She rejoined him some weeks later at RioJaneiro, and they reached Santos on 9th October 1865. They found ita plashy, swampy place, prolific in mangroves and true ferns,with here and there a cultivated patch. Settlers, however, becameattached to it. Sandflies and mosquitoes abounded, and the formerused to make Burton "come out all over lumps." Of the other vermin,including multitudinous snakes, and hairy spiders the size of toyterriers they took no particular notice. The amenities of the placewere wonderful orchids, brilliantly coloured parrots and giganticbutterflies with great prismy wings. The Burtons kept a number ofslaves, whom, however, they paid "as if they were free men,"and Mrs. Burton erected a chapel for them--her oratory--where theBishop "gave her leave to have mass and the sacraments." Her chiefconvert, and he wanted converting very badly, was an inhuman,pusillanimous coal-black dwarf, 35 years of age, calledChico,[FN#211] who became her right-hand man. Just as she had madehim to all appearance a good sound Catholic she caught him roastingalive her favourite cat before the kitchen fire. This was theresult partly of innate diablery and partly of her having spoilthim, but wherever she went Mrs. Burton managed to get a servantcompanion whom her lack of judgment made an intolerable burdento her. Chico was only the first of a series. Mrs. Burton alsolooked well after the temporal needs of the neighbourhood, but ifshe was always the Lady Bountiful, she was rarely the LadyJudicious.

52. Aubertin. Death of Steinhauser, 27th July 1866.

The Burtons resided sometimes at Santos and sometimes at Sao Paulo,eight miles inland. These towns were just then being connected byrailway; and one of the superintendents, Mr. John James Aubertin,who resided at Sao Paulo, became Burton's principal friend there.Aubertin was generally known as the "Father of Cotton," becauseduring the days of the cotton famine, he had laboured indefatigablyand with success to promote the cultivation of the shrub in thoseparts. Like Burton, Aubertin loved Camoens, and the two friendsdelighted to walk together in the butterfly-haunted forests and talkabout the "beloved master," while each communicated to the other hisintention of translating The Lusiads into English. Thirteen years,however, were to elapse before the appearance of Aubertin'stranslation[FN#212] and Burton's did not see print till 1880.In 1866 Burton received a staggering blow in the loss of his oldfriend Dr. Steinhauser, who died suddenly of heart disease, during aholiday in Switzerland, 27th July 1866. It was Steinhauser, it willbe remembered, with whom he had planned the translation ofThe Arabian Nights, a subject upon which they frequentlycorresponded.[FN#213]

53. The Facetious Cannibals.

Wherever Burton was stationed he invariably interested himself inthe local archaeological and historical associations. Thus atSantos he explored the enormous kitchen middens of the aboriginalIndians; but the chief attraction was the site of a Portuguesefort, marked by a stone heap, where a gunner, one Hans Stade,was carried off by the cannibals and all but eaten. Burton used tovisit the place by boat, and the narrative written by Hans Stade sofascinated him that he induced a Santos friend, Albert Tootal,to translate it into English. The translation was finished in 1869,and five years later Burton wrote for it an introduction and somevaluable notes and sent it to press. Though Burton scarcely shinesas an original writer, he had a keen eye for what was good inothers, and he here showed for the first time that remarkable giftfor annotating which stood him in such stead when he came to handleThe Arabian Nights.

Hans Stade's story is so amusing that if we did not know it to befact we should imagine it the work of some Portuguese W. S. Gilbert.Never were more grisly scenes or more captivating and facetiouscannibals. When they told Stade that he was to be eaten,they added, in order to cheer him, that he was to be washed downwith a really pleasant drink called kawi. The king's son then tiedStade's legs together in three places. "I was made," says thewretched man, "to hop with jointed feet through the huts; at thisthey laughed and said 'Here comes our meat hopping along,'"Death seemed imminent. They did Stade, however, no injury besideshaving off his eyebrows, though the younger savages, when hungry,often looked wistfully at him and rubbed their midriffs. The otherprisoners were, one by one, killed and eaten, but the cannibals tooktheir meals in a way that showed indifferent breeding. Even theking had no table manners whatever, but walked about gnawing a meatybone. He was good-natured, however, and offered a bit to Stade,who not only declined, but uttered some words of reproof. Thoughsurprised, the king was not angry; he took another bite and observedcritically, with his mouth full, "It tastes good!"

Life proceeds slowly, whether at Santos or Sao Paulo, almost theonly excitement being the appearance of companies of friendlyIndians. They used to walk in single file, and on passing Burton'shouse would throw out their arms as if the whole file were pulled bya string. Burton did not confine himself to Santos, however.He wandered all over maritime Brazil, and at Rio he lectured beforethe king[FN#214] and was several times invited to be present atbanquets and other splendid gatherings. On the occasion of one ofthese notable functions, which was to be followed by a dinner,one room of the palace was set apart for the ministers to wait inand another for the consuls. The Burtons were told not to go intothe consular room, but into the ministers' room. When, however,they got to the door the officials refused to let them pass.

"This is the ministers' room," they said, "You cannot come here."

"Well, where am I to go?" enquired Burton.

Mrs. Burton stood fuming with indignation at the sight of the streamof nonentities who passed in without question, but Burton cried,"Wait a moment, my darling. I've come to see the Emperor, and seethe Emperor I will."

So he sent in his card and a message.

"What!" cried the Emperor, "a man like Burton excluded. Bring himto me at once." So Burton and his wife were conducted to theEmperor and Empress, to whom Burton talked so interestingly,that they forgot all about the dinner. Meanwhile flunkeys keptmoving in and out, anxiety on their faces--the princes, ambassadorsand other folk were waiting, dinner was waiting; and the highfunctionaries and dinner were kept waiting for half an hour. "Well,I've had my revenge," said Burton to his wife when the interview wasover. "Only think of those starving brutes downstairs; but I'msorry on your account I behaved as I did, for it will go against allyour future 'at homes.'" At dinner the Emperor and the Empress weremost attentive to the Burtons and the Empress gave Mrs. Burton abeautiful diamond bracelet.[FN#215]

Among Burton's admirers was a Rio gentleman named Cox, who had amansion near the city. One day Mr. Cox arranged a grand dinnerparty and invited all his friends to meet the famous traveller.Burton arrived early, but presently disappeared. By and by theother guests streamed in, and after amusing themselves for a littlewhile about the grounds they began to enquire for Burton. But noBurton was to be seen. At last someone happened to look up thehighest tree in the compound and there was the guest of the day highamong the branches squatting like a monkey. He had got up there,he said, to have a little peace, and to keep on with the book he waswriting about Brazil. He came down, however, when the lunch bellrang, for though he grumbled at all other noises, he maintainedthat, somehow that sound always had a peculiar sweetness.

Wit and humour, wherever found, never failed to please Burton, and aremark which he heard in a Brazilian police court and uttered by thepresiding magistrate, who, was one of his friends, particularlytickled him:

"Who is this man?" demanded the magistrate, in reference to adissipated-looking prisoner.

"Un Inglez bebado" (a drunken Englishman), replied the constable.

"A drunken Englishman," followed the magistrate, "What a pleonasm!"

A little later Burton and his wife went down a mine which ran threequarters of a mile into the earth. "The negret Chico," says Burton,"gave one glance at the deep, dark pit, wrung his hands and fled theTophet, crying that nothing in the wide, wide world would make himenter such an Inferno. He had lately been taught that he is aresponsible being, with an 'immortal soul,' and he was beginning tobelieve it in a rough, theoretical way: this certainly did not looklike a place 'where the good niggers go.'" However, if Chico turnedcoward Burton and his wife did not hesitate. But they had momentsof fearful suspense as they sank slowly down into the black abysm.The snap of a single link in the long chain would have meantinstantaneous death; and a link had snapped but a few days previous,with fatal results. Arrived at the bottom they found themselves ina vast cave lighted with a few lamps--the walls black as night orreflecting slender rays from the polished watery surface.Distinctly Dantesque was the gulf between the huge mountain sideswhich threatened every moment to fall. One heard the click and thudof hammers, the wild chants of the borers, the slush of water.Being like gnomes and kobolds glided hither and thither--half nakedfigures muffled up by the mist. Here dark bodies, gleaming withbeaded heat drops, hung in what seemed frightful positions;"they swung like Leotard from place to place." Others swarmed uploose ropes like Troglodytes. It was a situation in which "thoughtswere many and where words were few."

Burton and his wife were not sorry when they found themselves aboveground again and in the sweet light of day.

54. Down the Sao Francisco.

The next event was a canoe journey which Burton made alone down theriver Sao Francisco from its source to the falls of Paulo Affonso--and then on to the sea, a distance of 1500 miles--an astounding feateven for him. During these adventures a stanza in his ownunpublished version of Camoens constantly cheered him:

"Amid such scenes with danger fraught and pain Serving the fiery spirit more to flame, Who woos bright honour, he shall ever win A true nobility, a deathless fame: Not they who love to lean, unjustly vain, Upon the ancestral trunk's departed claim; Nor they reclining on the gilded beds Where Moscow's zebeline downy softness spreads."[FN#216]

Indeed he still continued, at all times of doubt and despondency, toturn to this beloved poet; and always found something to encourage.

55. In Paraguay. August 15th to September 15th 1868. April 4th toApril 18th 1869.

The year before his arrival in Santos a terrible war had broken outbetween Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina on the one side and Paraguayon the other; the Paraguayan dictator Lopez II. had been defeated inmany battles and Paraguay so long, thanks to the Jesuits andDr. Francia, a thriving country, was gradually being reducedto ruin. Tired of Santos, which was out of the world and led tonothing, Burton in July 1868 sent in his resignation. Mrs. Burtonat once proceeded to England, but before following her, Burton atthe request of the Foreign Office, travelled through various partsof South America in order to report the state of the war.He visited Paraguay twice, and after the second journey made his wayacross the continent to Arica in Peru, whence he took ship to Londonvia the Straits of Magellan.[FN#217] During part of the voyage hehad as fellow traveller Arthur Orton, the Tichborne claimant.As both had spent their early boyhood at Elstree they could had theyso wished have compared notes, but we may be sure Mr. Ortonpreserved on that subject a discreet silence. The war terminated inMarch 1870, after the death of Lopez II. at the battle of Aquidaban.Four-fifths of the population of Paraguay had perished by swordor famine.

Chapter XIV October 1869-16th August 1871 "Emperor and Empress of Damascus."

Bibliography:

32. Vikram and the Vampire.33. Letters from the Battlefields of Paraguay. 1870.34. Proverba Communia Syriaca. 1871.35. The Jew. Written 1871, published 1898.

56. Archbishop Manning and the Odd Fish.

Mrs. Burton had carried with her to England several books writtenby her husband in Brazil, and upon her arrival she occupied herselffirst in arranging for their publication, and secondly in trying toform a company to work some Brazilian mines for which Burton hadobtained a concession. The books were The Highlands of Brazil(2 vols. 1869), The Lands of the Cazembe (1873) and Iracema,or Honey Lips, a translation from the Brazilian (1886).

We hear no more of the mines, but she was able to send her husband"the excellent news of his appointment to the Consulate ofDamascus." He heard of it first, however, not from her letter,but casually in a cafe at Lima, just as he was preparing to returnhome. On arriving in England almost his first business was topatent a pistol which he had invented especially for the use oftravellers, and then he and Mrs. Burton gave themselves the pleasureof calling on old friends and going into society. To this dateshould, perhaps, be assigned the story[FN#218] of Archbishop,afterwards Cardinal Manning, and the Odd Fish. Burton had justpresented to the Zoological Gardens a curious fish which lived outof water, and took but little nourishment. He had often presenteddifferent creatures to the Zoo, though nobody had ever thanked him,but this gift created some commotion, and "Captain Burton's OddFish" became the talk of London.

In the midst of its popularity Burton one day found himself seatedat a grand dinner next to his good friend the long, lean andabstemious Archbishop Manning. But much as Burton liked Manning,he could never bear to be near him at meal times. Manning alwayswould eat little and talk much; so Burton, who was a magnificenttrencherman, suffered serious inconvenience, and the presentoccasion proved no exception. It was in vain that Burton urged theArchbishop to mortify himself by eating his dinner. After a whileMrs. Burton, who sat on the other side of the Archbishop, remarked"Richard must take you to the Zoo and show you his famous fish.""I'll certainly go," said Manning, turning to Burton, "I am reallycurious to see it." "Then my Lord," followed Burton, "there will bea pair of odd fish. You know, you neither eat nor drink, and that'sthe peculiarity of the other fish."

As usual when in England, Burton spoke at several public meetings,and Mrs. Burton, of whose appearance he continued to be justifiablyproud, generally accompanied him on the platform. Before speakinghe always ate sparingly, saying "No" to almost everything. On oneof such evenings he was the guest of Dr. Burton, and by chance,hot curry, his favourite dish, was placed on the table. "Now thisis real wickedness, cousin," he exclaimed, "to have hot curry whenI can't eat it." When dinner was nearly over somebody came in witha basket of damask roses. "Ask for two of them," whispered Burtonto his wife. She did, and appeared with them in her bosom on theplatform, "And oh," added my informer, "how handsome she looked!"

Having visited Uriconium, the English Pompeii, the Burtons made forVichy, where they met Mr. Swinburne, (Sir) Frederick Leighton andMrs. Sartoris. His companions on this journey, as on so manyothers, were two books--one being the anodynous Camoens, the othera volume consisting of the Bible, Shakespeare and Euclid boundtogether, which looked, with its three large clasps, like acongested Church Service. Mrs. Burton then returned to England"to pay and pack," while Burton, "being ignorant" as they say inthe Nights, "of what lurked for him in the secret purpose of God,"proceeded to Damascus, with two bull-terriers, descendants,no doubt, of the Oxford beauty.

57. 3rd Consulate, Damascus.

Mrs. Burton followed in December, with her entire fortune--a modest£300 in gold, and life promised to be all labdanum. Disliking thehouses in Damascus itself, the Burtons took one in the suburbEl Salahiyyah; and here for two years they lived among white domesand tapering minarets, palms and apricot trees. Midmost the court,with its orange and lemon trees, fell all day the cool waters of afountain. The principal apartments were the reception room,furnished with rich Eastern webs, and a large dining room, while aterrace forming part of the upper storey served as "a pleasanthousetop in the cool evenings." The garden, with its roses,jessamine, vines, citron, orange and lemon trees, extended to thatancient river, the jewel-blue Chyrsorrhoa. There was excellentstabling, and Mrs. Burton kept horses, donkeys, a camel, turkeys,bull-terriers, street dogs, ducks, leopards, lambs, pigeons, goats,and, to use Burton's favourite expression, "other notions." Theyrequired much patient training, but the result was satisfactory,for when most of them had eaten one another they became a reallyharmonious family.

If Mrs. Burton went abroad to the bazaar or elsewhere she wasaccompanied by four Kawwasses in full dress of scarlet and gold,and on her reception day these gorgeous attendants kept guard.Her visitors sat on the divans cross-legged or not according totheir nation, smoked, drank sherbet and coffee, and ate sweetmeats.

For Ra'shid Pasha, the Wali or Governor-General of Syria, bothBurton and his wife conceived from the first a pronounced antipathy.He was fat and indolent, with pin-point eyes, wore furs, walked onhis toes, purred and looked like "a well-fed cat." It did not,however, occur to them just then that he was to be their evilgenius.

"Call him Ra'shid, with the accent on the first syllable," Burtonwas always careful to say when speaking of this fiendish monster,"and do not confound him with (Haroun al) Rashi'd, accent on thesecond syllable--'the orthodox,' the 'treader in the rightpath.'"[FN#219]

58. Jane Digby el Mezrab.

At an early date Burton formed a friendship with the Algerine heroand exile Abd el Kadir, a dark, kingly-looking man who alwaysappeared in snow white and carried superbly-jewelled arms;while Mrs. Burton, who had a genius for associating herself withundesirable persons, took to her bosom the notorious and polyandrousJane Digby el Mezrab.[FN#220] This lady had been the wife first ofLord Ellenborough, who divorced her, secondly of PrinceSchwartzenberg, and afterwards of about six other gentlemen.Finally, having used up Europe, she made her way to Syria, where shemarried a "dirty little black"[FN#221] Bedawin shaykh. Mrs. Burton,with her innocent, impulsive, flamboyant mind, not only grappledJane Digby with hoops of steel, but stigmatised all the chargesagainst her as wilful and malicious. Burton, however, mistrustedthe lady from the first. Says Mrs. Burton of her new friend,"She was a most beautiful woman, though sixty-one, tall, commanding,and queen-like. She was grande dame jusqu' au bout des doights,as much as if she had just left the salons of London and Paris,refined in manner, nor did she ever utter a word you could wishunsaid. She spoke nine languages perfectly, and could read andwrite in them. She lived half the year in Damascus and half withher husband in his Bedawin tents, she like any other Bedawin woman,but honoured and respected as the queen of her tribe, wearing oneblue garment, her beautiful hair in two long plaits down to theground, milking the camels, serving her husband, preparing his food,sitting on the floor and washing his feet, giving him his coffee;and while he ate she stood and waited on him: and glorying in it.She looked splendid in Oriental dress. She was my most intimatefriend, and she dictated to me the whole of her biography."[FN#222]Both ladies were inveterate smokers, and they, Burton, and Abd elKadir spent many evenings on the terrace of the house with theirnarghilehs. Burton and his wife never forgot these delightsomecauseries. Swiftly, indeed, flew the happy hours when they

"Nighted and dayed in Damascus town."[FN#223]

59. To Tadmor.

Burton had scarcely got settled in Damascus before he expressed hisintention of visiting the historic Tadmor in the desert. It was aneight days' journey, and the position of the two wells on the waywas kept a secret by Jane Digby's tribe, who levied blackmail on allvisitors to the famous ruins. The charge was the monstrous one of£250; but Burton--at all times a sworn foe to cupidity--resolved togo without paying. Says Mrs. Burton, "Jane Digby was in a veryanxious state when she heard this announcement, as she knew it wasa death blow to a great source of revenue to the tribe. .. She didall she could to dissuade us, she wept over our loss, and she toldus that we should never come back." Finally the subtle lady driedher crocodile eyes and offered her "dear friends" the escort of oneof her Bedawin, that they might steer clear of the raiders and beconducted more quickly to water, "if it existed." Burton motionedto his wife to accept the escort, and Jane left the house withill-concealed satisfaction. The Bedawi[FN#224] in due time arrived,but not before he had been secretly instructed by Jane to lead theBurtons into ambush whence they could be pounced upon by the tribeand kept prisoners till ransomed. That, however, was no more thanBurton had anticipated; consequently as soon as the expedition waswell on the road he deprived the Bedawi of his mare andaccoutrements, and retained both as hostages until Damascus shouldbe reached again. Appropriately enough this occurred on April theFirst.[FN#225] Success rewarded his acuteness, for naturally thewells were found, and the travellers having watered their camelsfinished the journey with comfort. Says Mrs. Burton, "I shall neverforget the imposing sight of Tadmor. There is nothing so deceivingas distance in the desert. ... A distant ruin stands out of the seaof sand, the atmosphere is so clear that you think you will reach itin half an hour; you ride all day and you never seem to get anynearer to it." Arrived at Tadmor they found it to consist of a feworchards, the imposing ruins, and a number of wretched huts"plastered like wasps' nests within them." Of the chief ruin,the Temple of the Sun, one hundred columns were still standing andBurton, who set his men to make excavations, found some statues,including one of Zenobia. The party reached Damascus again after anabsence of about a month. The Bedawi's mare was returned; and JaneDigby had the pleasure of re-union with her dear Mrs. Burton,whom she kissed effusively.

Both Burton and his wife mingled freely with the people of Damascus,and Burton, who was constantly storing up knowledge against hisgreat edition of The Arabian Nights, often frequented the Arabiclibrary.[FN#226] Their favourite walk was to the top of an adjacenteminence, whence they could look down on Damascus, which lay in thelight of the setting sun, "like a pearl." Then there wereexcursions to distant villages of traditionary interest, includingJobar, where Elijah is reputed to have hidden, and to have anointedHazael.[FN#227] "The Bird," indeed, as ever, was continually on thewing, nor was Mrs. Burton less active. She visited, for example,several of the harems in the city, including that of Abd el Kadir."He had five wives," she says, "one of them was very pretty.I asked them how they could bear to live together and pet eachother's children. I told them that in England, if a woman thoughther husband had another wife or mistress, she would be ready to killher. They all laughed heartily at me, and seemed to think it agreat joke."[FN#228] She also took part in various social andreligious functions, and was present more than once at acircumcision--at which, she tells us, the victim, as Westerns mustregard him, was always seated on richest tapestry resembling a bridethrone, while his cries were drowned by the crash of cymbals.Burton's note-books, indeed, owed no mean debt to her zealousco-operation.

60. Palmer and Drake. 11th July 1870.

The Burtons spent their summer in a diminutive Christian villagecalled B'ludan, on the Anti-Lebanon, at the head of the Vale ofZebedani, Burton having chosen it as his sanitarium. A beautifulstream with waterfalls bubbled through their gardens, whichcommanded magnificent views of the Lebanon country. As at Santos,Mrs. Burton continued her role of Lady Bountiful, and she spent manyhours making up powders and pills. Although in reality nobody wasone jot the better or the worse for taking them, the rumourcirculated that they were invariably fatal. Consequently herreputation as a doctor spread far and wide. One evening a peasantwoman who was dying sent a piteous request for aid, and Mrs. Burton,who hurried to the spot, satisfied the poor soul by theadministration of some useless but harmless dose. Next morningthe woman's son appeared. He thanked Mrs. Burton warmly for herattentions, said it was his duty to report that his mother was dead,and begged for a little more of the efficacious white powder,as he had a bedridden grandmother of whom he was also anxiousto be relieved.

One piping hot morning[FN#229] when walking in his garden Burtonnoticed a gipsy tent outside, and on approaching it found twosun-burnt Englishmen, a powerful, amiable-looking giant, and asmaller man with a long beard and silky hair. The giant turned outto be Charles Tyrwhitt Drake and the medium-sized man Edward HenryPalmer, both of whom were engaged in survey work. Drake, aged 24,was the draughtsman and naturalist; Palmer,[FN#230] just upon 30,but already one of the first linguists of the day,the archaeologist. Palmer, like Burton, had leanings towardsoccultism; crystal gazing, philosopher's stone hunting.After making a mess with chemicals, he would gaze intently at it,and say excitedly: "I wonder what will happen"--an expression thatwas always expected of him on such and all other exciting occasions.A quadruple friendship ensued, and the Burtons, Drake and Palmermade several archaeological expeditions together. To Palmer'spoetical eyes all the Lebanon region was enchanted ground. Here thelovely Shulamite of the lovelier Scripture lyric fed her flocks bythe shepherd's tents. Hither came Solomon, first disguised as ashepherd, to win her love, and afterwards in his royal litterperfumed with myrrh and frankincense to take her to his Cedar House.This, too, was the country of Adonis. In Lebanon the wild boarslew him, and yonder, flowing towards "holy Byblus," were"the sacred waters where the women of the ancient mysteries came tomingle their tears."[FN#231] Of this primitive and picturesque butwanton worship they were reminded frequently both by relic and placename. To Palmer, viewing them in the light of the past, the Cedarsof Lebanon were a poem, but to Burton--a curious mixture of theromantic and the prosaic--with his invariable habit of underratingfamous objects, they were "a wretched collection of scraggyChristmas trees." "I thought," said Burton, "when I came here thatSyria and Palestine would be so worn out that my occupation as anexplorer was clean gone." He found, however, that such was not thecase--all previous travellers having kept to the beaten tracks;Jaydur, for example, the classical Ituraea, was represented on themaps by "a virgin white patch." Burton found it teeming withinterest. There was hardly a mile without a ruin--broken pillars,inscribed slabs, monoliths, tombs. A little later he travelled asfar northward as Hamah[FN#232] in order to copy the uncouthcharacters on the famous stones, and Drake discovered an altaradorned with figures of Astarte and Baal.[FN#233] Everywherethroughout Palestine he had to deplore the absence of trees."Oh that Brigham Young were here!" he used to say, "to planta million. The sky would then no longer be brass, or the faceof the country a quarry." Thanks to his researches, Burton has madehis name historical in the Holy Land, for his book UnexploredSyria--written though it be in a distressingly slipshod style--throws,from almost every page, interesting light on the Bible. "Study ofthe Holy Land," he said, "has the force of a fifth Gospel, not onlybecause it completes and harmonises, but also because it makesintelligible the other four. Oh, when shall we have a reasonableversion of Hebrew Holy Writ which will retain the original namesof words either untranslatable or to be translated only by guesswork!"[FN#234] One of their adventures--with a shaykh namedSalameh--reads like a tale out of The Arabian Nights. Having ledthem by devious paths into an uninhabited wild, Salameh announced that,unless they made it worth his wile to do otherwise, he intended toleave them there to perish, and it took twenty-five pounds tosatisfy the rogue's cupidity. Palmer, however, was of opinion thatan offence of this kind ought by no means to be passed over, so onreaching Jerusalem he complained to the Turkish governor and askedthat the man might receive punishment. "I know the man," said thePasha, "he is a scoundrel, and you shall see an example of thestrength and equity of the Sultan's rule;" and of course, Palmer,in his perpetual phrase, wondered what would happen. After theirreturn to Damascus the three friends had occasion to call on RashidPasha. "Do you think," said the Wali, with his twitching moustacheand curious, sleek, unctuous smile, "do you think you would knowyour friend again?" He then clapped his hands and a soldier broughtin a sack containing four human heads, one of which had belonged tothe unfortunate Salameh. "Are you satisfied?" enquiredthe Wali.[FN#235]

61. Khamoor.

Having been separated from "that little beast of a Brazilian"--the cat-torturing Chico--Mrs. Burton felt that she must have anotherconfidential servant companion. Male dwarfs being so unsatisfactoryshe now decided to try a full-sized human being, and of the othersex. At Miss Ellen Wilson's Protestant Mission in Anti-Lebanonshe saw just her ideal--a lissom, good-looking Syrian maid,named Khamoor, or "The Moon." Chico the Second (or shall we sayChica[FN#236] the First.) had black plaits of hair confined by acoloured handkerchief, large, dark, reflulgent eyes, pouting lips,white teeth, of which she was very proud, "a temperament which wasall sunshine and lightning in ten minutes," and a habit ofdischarging, quite unexpectedly, a "volley of fearful oaths."She was seventeen--"just the time of life when a girl requirescareful guiding." So Mrs. Burton, or "Ya Sitti," as Khamoor calledher, promptly set about this careful guiding--that is to say shefussed and petted Khamoor till the girl lost all knowledge of herplace and became an intolerable burden. Under Mrs. Burton'sdirection she learnt to wear stays[FN#237] though this took a gooddeal of learning; and also to slap men's faces and scream when theytried to kiss her. By dint of practice she in time managed thisalso to perfection. Indeed, she gave up, one by one, all herheathenish ways, except swearing, and so became a well-conductedyoung lady, and almost English. Mrs. Burton was nothing if not awoman with a mission, and henceforward two cardinal ideas swayed hernamely, first to inveigle the heathen into stays, and secondly,to induce them to turn Catholics. Her efforts at conversion weremore or less successful, but the other propaganda had, to her realsorrow, only barren results.

In March 1871, Charles Tyrwhitt Drake, who had spent some months inEngland, arrived again in Damascus, and the Burtons begged him to betheir permanent guest. Henceforth Mrs. Burton, Burton and Drakewere inseparable companions, and they explored together "almostevery known part of Syria." Mrs. Burton used to take charge of thecamp "and visited the harems to note things hidden from mankind,"Drake sketched and collected botanical and geological specimens,while Burton's studies were mainly anthropological andarchaeological. They first proceeded to Jerusalem, where they spentHoly Week, and after visiting Hebron, the Dead Sea, and otherhistorical spots, they returned by way of Nazareth. But here theymet with trouble. Early in his consulate, it seems, Burton hadprotested against some arbitrary proceedings on the part of theGreek Bishop of Nazareth, and thus made enemies among the Greeks.Unhappily, when the travellers appeared this ill-feeling led a posseof Nazarenes to make an attack on Burton's servants; and Burton andDrake, who ran half dressed out of their tents to see what was thematter, were received with a shower of stones, and cries of "Killthem!" Burton stood perfectly calm, though the stones hit him rightand left, and Drake also displayed cool bravery. Mrs. Burton thenhastened up with "two six shot revolvers," but Burton, having wavedher back--snatched a pistol from the belt of one of his servants andfired it into the air, with the object of summoning his armedcompanions, whereupon the Greeks, though they numbered at least ahundred and fifty, promptly took to their heels. Out of thisoccurrence, which Burton would have passed over, his enemies, as weshall see, subsequently made considerable capital. The party thenproceeded to the Sea of Galilee, whence they galloped across "theirown desert" home. During these travels Burton and Drake made somevaluable discoveries and saw many extraordinary peoples, though nonemore extraordinary than the lazy and filthy Troglodytes of theHauran,[FN#238] who shared the pre-historic caves with their cowsand sheep, and fed on mallows just as their forefathers arerepresented as having done in the vivid thirtieth chapter ofJob,[FN#239] and in the pages of Agatharchides.[FN#240]

62. The Shazlis.

Mrs. Burton now heard news that fired her with joy. A sect of theMohammedans called Shazlis used to assemble in the house of one oftheir number of Moslem prayer, reading and discussion. One day theybecame conscious of a mysterious presence among them. They heardand saw things incommunicably strange, and a sacred rapture diffuseditself among them. Their religion had long ceased to give themsatisfaction, and they looked anxiously round in search of a better.One night when they were overcome by sleep there appeared to each avenerable man with a long white beard, who said sweetly, "Let thosewho want the truth follow me," and forthwith they resolved to searchthe earth until they found the original of the vision. But they hadnot to go far. One of them chancing to enter a monastery inDamascus noticed a Spanish priest named Fray Emanuel Forner.Hurrying back to his comrades he cried "I have seen the oldster ofthe dreams." On being earnestly requested to give direction,Forner became troubled, and with a view to obtaining advice,hurried to Burton. Both Burton and his wife listened to the talewith breathless interest. Mrs. Burton naturally wanted to sweepthe whole sect straightway into the Roman Church, and it is saidthat she offered to be sponsor herself to 2,000 of them. In anycircumstances, she distributed large numbers of crucifixes androsaries. Burton, who regarded nine-tenths of the doctrines of herchurch as a tangle of error, was nevertheless much struck with thestory. He had long been seeking for a perfect religion, and hewondered whether these people had not found it. Here in this cityof Damascus, where Our Lord had appeared to St. Paul, a similarapparition had again been seen--this time by a company of earnestseekers after truth. He determined to investigate. So disguisedas a Shazli, he attended their meetings and listened while Fornerimparted the principal dogmas of the Catholic faith. His commonsense soon told him that the so-called miraculous sights were merelyhallucinations, the outcome of heated and hysterical imagination.He sympathised with the Shazlis in that like himself they wereseekers after truth, and there, as far as he was concerned,the matter would have ended had the scenes been in any othercountry. But in Syria religious freedom was unknown, and the cruelWali Rashid Pasha was only too delighted to have an opportunity touse his power. He crushed where he could not controvert. Twelve ofthe leading Shazlis--the martyrs, as they were called--were seizedand imprisoned. Forner died suddenly; as some think, by poison.This threw Burton, who hated oppression in all its forms, into atowering rage, and he straightway flung the whole of his weight intothe cause of the Shazlis. Persecution gave them holiness. He wroteto Lord Granville that there were at least twenty-five thousandChristians longing secretly for baptism, and he suggested methods bywhich they might be protected. He also recommended the Governmentto press upon the Porte many other reforms. Both Burton and hiswife henceforward openly protected the Shazlis, and in fact madethemselves, to use the words of a member of the English Government,"Emperor and Empress of Damascus."

That Rashid Pasha and his crawling myrmidons were rascals of thefirst water and that the Shazlis were infamously treated is veryevident. It is also clear that Burton was more just thandiplomatic. We cannot, however, agree with those who lay all theblame on Mrs. Burton. We may not sympathise with her religiousviews, but, of course, she had the same right to endeavour to extendher own church as the Protestants at Beyrout, who periodically sententhusiastic agents to Damascus, had to extend theirs.

The Shazli trouble alone, however, would not have shaken seriouslyBurton's position; and whatever others may have thought, it iscertain Burton himself never at any time in his life considered thatin this matter any particular blame attached to his wife.But unfortunately the Shazli trouble was only one of a series.Besides embroiling himself with the truculent Rashid Pasha and hisunderlings, Burton contrived to give offence to four other bodiesof men. In June, 1870, Mr. Mentor Mott, the kind andcharitable[FN#241] superintendent of the British Syrian Schoolat Beyrout, went to Damascus to proselytize, and acted, in Burton'sopinion, with some indiscretion. Deeming Damascus just then to benot in a temper for proselytising, Burton reprimanded him, and thusoffended the Protestant missionaries and Mr. Jackson Eldridge,the Consul-General at Beyrout. In Burton's opinion, but forMrs. Mott the storm would have gradually subsided. That lady,however, took the matter more to heart than her husband, and washenceforth Burton's implacable enemy. Then arose a difficulty withthe Druzes, who had ill-treated some English missionaries. As theywere Turkish subjects the person to act was Rashid Pasha, but Burtonand he being at daggers drawn, Burton attempted to fine the Druzeshimself. He was reminded, however, that his power was limitary,and that he would not be allowed to exceed it. To the trouble withthe Greeks we have already referred. But his chief enemies were theJews, or rather the Jewish money-lenders, who used to go to thedistressed villages, offer money, keep all the papers, and allowtheir victims nothing to show. Interest had to be paid over andover again. Compound interest was added, and when payment wasimpossible the defaulters were cast into prison. Burton'spredecessor had been content to let matters alone, but Burton'sblood boiled when he thought of these enormities. Still, when themoney-lenders came to him and stated their case, he made for a timean honest attempt to double; but ultimately his indignation got thebetter of his diplomacy, and with an oath that made the windowsrattle, he roared, "Do you think I am going to be bum-bailiff to aparcel of blood-suckers!" And yet these gentlemen had sometimes,in their moderation, charged as little as sixty per cent.Henceforward Burton looked evil upon the whole Jewish race,and resolved to write a book embodying his researches respectingthem and his Anti-Semite opinions. For the purpose of it he mademinute enquiries concerning the death of one Padre Tommaso, whom theJews were suspected of having murdered in 1840. These enquiriesnaturally have his foes further umbrage, and they in return angrilydischarge their venom at him. In his book The Jew, published afterhis death,[FN#242] he lashes the whole people. He seems in itspages to be constantly running up and down with a whip and saying:"I'll teach you to be 'an Ebrew Jew,' I will." His credulity andprejudice are beyond belief. He accepts every malicious andrancorous tale told against the Jews, and records as historicalfacts even such problematical stories as the murder of Hugh ofLincoln. Thus he managed to exasperate representatives of almostevery class. But perhaps it was his championship of the Shazlisthat made the most mischief. Says Lady Burton, "It broke hiscareer, it shattered his life, it embittered him towards religion."

Complaints and garbled stories reached London from all sides,and Burton was communicated with. He defended himself manfully,and showed that in every question he had been on the side ofrighteousness and equity, that he had simply fought systematicallyagainst cruelty, oppression and nefariousness. He could not andwould not temporize. An idea of the corruption prevalent atDamascus may be fathered from the fact that on one occasion £10,000was promised him if he would "give an opinion which would haveswayed a public transaction." Says Lady Burton, "My husband let theman finish, and then he said, 'If you were a gentleman of my ownstanding, and an Englishman, I would just pitch you out of thewindow; but as you are not, you may pick up your £10,000 and walkdown the stairs.'"[FN#243]

63. The Recall. 16th August 1871.

Accusations, many of them composed of the bluest gall; and manlyletters of defence from Burton now flew almost daily from Damascusto England. The Wali, the Jews and others all had their variousgrievances. As it happened, the British Government wanted,just then, above all things, peace and quiet. If Burton could havemanaged to jog along in almost any way with the Wali, the Druzes,the Greeks, the Jews and the other factors in Syria, there wouldhave been no trouble. As to whether Burton was right or wrong inthese disputes, the Government seems not to have cared a straw orto have given a moment's thought. Here, they said, is a man whosomehow has managed to stir up a wasp's nest, and who may embroil uswith Turkey. This condition of affairs must cease. Presently camethe crash. On August 16th just as Burton and Tyrwhitt Drake weresetting out for a ride at B'ludan, a messenger appeared and handedBurton a note. He was superseded. The blow was a terrible one, andfor a moment he was completely unmanned. He hastened to Damascus inthe forlorn hope that there was a mistake. But it was quite true,the consulship had been given to another.

To his wife he sent the message, "I am superseded. Pay, pack,and follow at convenience." Then he started for Beirut, where shejoined him. "After all my service," wrote Burton in his journal,"ignominiously dismissed at fifty years of age." One cry only keptspringing from Mrs. Burton's lips, "Oh, Rashid Pasha! Oh, RashidPasha!"

At Damascus Burton had certainly proved himself a man ofincorruptible integrity. Even his enemies acknowledged his probity.But this availed nothing. Only two years had elapsed since he hadlanded in Syria, flushed with high premonitions; now he retired abroken man, shipwrecked in hope and fortune. When he looked back onhis beloved Damascus--"O, Damascus, pearl of the East"--it was withthe emotion evinced by the last of the Moors bidding adieu toGranada, and it only added to his exasperation when he imagined theexultation of the hated Jews, and the sardonic grin on the sly,puffy, sleek face of Rashid Pasha.

Just before Mrs. Burton left B'ludan an incident occurred whichbrings her character into high relief. A dying Arab boy was broughtto her to be treated for rheumatic fever. She says, "I saw thatdeath was near. ... 'Would you like to see Allah?' I said, takinghold of his cold hand. ... I parted his thick, matted hair,and kneeling, I baptised him from the flask of water I alwayscarried at my side. 'What is that?' asked his grandmother aftera minute's silence. 'It is a blessing,' I answered, 'and may dohim good!'"[FN#244] The scene has certain points in common withthat enacted many years after in Burton's death chamber. Havingfinished all her "sad preparations at B'ludan," Mrs. Burton "badeadieu to the Anti-Lebanon with a heavy heart, and for the last time,choking with emotion, rode down the mountain and through the Plainof Zebedani, with a very large train of followers."--"I had asorrowful ride," says she, "into Damascus. Just outside the citygates I met the Wali, driving in state, with all his suite.He looked radiant, and saluted me with much empressement. I did notreturn his salute."[FN#245]

It is satisfactory to know that Rashid Pasha's triumph wasshort-lived. Within a month of Burton's departure he was recalledby the Porte and disgraced. Not only so but every measure whichBurton had recommended during his consulship was ordered to becarried out, and "The reform was so thorough and complete, that HerMajesty's Ambassador at Constantinople was directed officially tocompliment the Porte upon its newly initiated line of progress."But nobody thanked, or even though of Burton. On the occasion ofhis departure Burton received shoals of letters from prominent menof "every creed, race and tongue," manifesting sorrow and wishinghim God-speed. Delightful, indeed, was the prologue of that fromAbd El Kadir: "Allah," it ran, "favour the days of your far-famedlearning, and prosper the excellence of your writing. O wader ofthe seas of knowledge, O cistern of learning of our globe, exaltedabove his age, whose exaltation is above the mountains of increaseand our rising place, opener by his books of night and day,traveller by ship and foot and horse, one whom none can equal intravel." The letter itself was couched in a few simple, heartfeltwords, and terminated with "It is our personal friendship to youwhich dictates this letter." "You have departed," wrote a Druzeshaykh, "leaving us the sweet perfume of charity and noble conductin befriending the poor and supporting the weak and oppressed,and your name is large on account of what God has put intoyour nature."

Some of the authorities at home gave out that one of the reasons forBurton's recall was that his life was in danger from the bullets ofhis enemies, but Burton commented drily: "I have been shot at,at different times, by at least forty men who fortunately could notshoot straight. Once more would not have mattered much."

Chapter XV 16th August 1871-4th June 1872 "The Blackness of Darkness"

64. With Sir H. Stisted at Norwood. August 1871.

Arrived in England Burton went straight to his sister's at Norwood.His dejection was abysmal. Says Miss Stisted, "Strong, brave manthough he was, the shock of his sudden recall told upon him cruelly.Not even during his last years, when his health had all but givenway, was he so depressed. Sleep being impossible, he used to situp, sometimes alone, sometimes with Sir H. Stisted, until the smallhours of the morning, smoking incessantly. Tragedy was dashed withcomedy; one night a terrible uproar arose. The dining-room windowshad been left open, the candles alight, and the pug asleep under thetable forgotten. A policeman, seeing the windows unclosed, knockedincessantly at the street door, the pug awoke and barked himselfhoarse, and everyone clattered out of his or her bedroom toascertain the cause of the disturbance. My uncle had quiteforgotten that in quiet English households servants retire to restbefore 3 a.m."[FN#246] Subsequently Lady Stisted and her daughtersresided at Folkestone, and thenceforth they were "the Folky Folk."Burton also took an early opportunity to visit his brother,and tried to lead him into conversation; but nothing could breakthat Telamonian silence.

65. Reduced to £15.

Mrs. Burton, who had returned to Damascus "to pay and pack,"now arrived in England, bringing with her very imprudently herSyrian maid Khamoor. The £16,000 left by Burton's father, the £300Mrs. Burton took out with her, and the Damascus £1,200 a year,all had been spent. Indeed, Mrs. Burton possessed no more than thefew pounds she carried about her person. In these circumstancesprudence would have suggested leaving such a cipher as Khamoor inSyria, but that seems not to have occurred to her. It is probable,however, that the spendthrift was not she but her husband, for whenshe came to be a widow she not only proved herself an astutebusiness woman, but accumulated wealth. On reaching London shefound Burton "in one room in a very small hotel." His pride had notallowed him to make any defence of himself; and it was at thisjuncture that Mrs. Burton showed her grit. She went to work withall her soul, and for three months she bombarded with letters boththe Foreign Office and outside men of influence. She was notdiscreet, but her pertinacity is beyond praise. Upon trying tolearn the real reason of his recall, she was told only a portion ofthe truth. Commenting on one of the charges, namely that Burton"was influenced by his Catholic wife against the Jews," she said,"I am proud to say that I have never in my life tried to influencemy husband to do anything wrong, and I am prouder still to say thatif I had tried I should not have succeeded."

For ten months the Burtons had to endure "great poverty and officialneglect," during which they were reduced to their last £15. Havingbeen invited by Mrs. Burton's uncle, Lord Gerard,to Garswood,[FN#247] they went thither by train. Says Mrs. Burton,"We were alone in a railway compartment, when one of the fifteensovereigns rolled out of my pursed, and slid between the boards ofthe carriage and the door, reducing us to £14. I sat on the floorand cried, and he sat by me with is arm round my waist trying tocomfort me."[FN#248] The poet, as Keats tells us, "pours out a balmupon the world," and in this, his darkest hour, Burton found relief,as he had so often found it, in the pages of his beloved Camoens.Gradually his spirits revived, and he began to revolve new schemes.Indeed, he was never the man to sit long in gloom or to waitlistlessly for the movement of fortune's wheel. He preferred toseize it and turn it to his purpose.

66. An Orgie at Lady Alford's. 2nd November 1871.

If the Burtons lacked money, on the other hand they had wealthyrelations with whom they were able to stay just as long as theypleased; and, despite their thorny cares, they threw themselvesheartily into the vortex of society. Among their friends was LadyMarion Alford, a woman of taste, talent and culture. The firstauthority of the day on art needlework, she used to expound herideas on the looms of the world from those of Circe to those ofMrs. Wheeler of New York. At one of Lady Alford's parties in herhouse at Princes Gate, October 1871, the Prince of Wales and theDuke of Edinburgh being present, Burton appeared dressed as a Syrianshaykh, and Mrs. Burton as a Moslem lady of Damascus. Burton wassupposed not to understand English, and Mrs. Burton gave out thatshe had brought him over to introduce him to English society.She thus described the occurrence in an unpublished letter toMiss Stisted.[FN#249]